Public Private Partnerships' failure rate in Europe compared: extent of transport PPPs' failure and its institutional determinants
Abstract
The last two decades have witnessed a rapid development of various forms of Public-Private Partnerships in Europe. Transport belongs to sectors where PPPs have been most visible and transformative.
Yet not all countries have embraced the new method in the same manner. As some initial studies indicate, their PPP readiness varies quite significantly.
So far, however, no single study has shown how (un)successful in reality the European countries are at implementing transport PPPs. This is mostly due to difficulties in formulating appropriate and comparable evaluation criteria.
At the same time, with many projects in development it is simply a bit too early to say whether the original expectations have been met. This study thus uses a negative definition of PPP success and establishes the failure rate for each country from the sample.
In doing so, it only takes into account indisputable cases of projects that were abandoned or seriously distressed and modified in advance stages of the procurement process. As a result, transport PPP failure rates of selected European countries are compared.
At the same time, the main success/failure factors within the wider PPP institutional framework are identified.